"I was no Samson"

The narrator's experience in the factory hospital is undoubtedly a pivotal point for him. We discussed in class how we could view this experience as a sort of rebirth for the narrator and while I agree with this approach to an extent, I see it more as yet another stage in the narrator's gradual disillusionment. He undergoes further realization of his circumstances in relation to himself in a heavy, sudden, and uniquely tangible dose as many of his many inner and outer conflicts manifest themselves in physical form. So far, in the most notable moments of disillusionment for the narrator, we have seen small shifts in his character. After being expelled by Bledsoe, we see the narrator still undeterred in his purpose but beginning to question the roots and meaning behind seemingly insignificant ideas such as those presented in song lyrics. After his encounter with Emerson, we see him taking this questioning of why things are and start to direct anger outwards, beginning to hold people accountable as he does when Brockway threatens to kill him and he reflects angrily on his past easy humility towards authority figures (although Brockway does stand out in that the narrator's initial respect for him was pretty low). Having emerged from the hospital we see him laughing at circumstances, saying "I am what I am!" and then wondering anxiously who exactly that is. Thus, the narrator's experience in the factory hospital has begun to set him on a path to self-discovery.

Ellison's portrayal of the narrator's experience is heavy with symbolism. He is confined to a glass box, studied like a specimen. Most notably, the machine seems to represent the societal system and people limiting the narrator.  The narrator describes how he was "pounded between crushing electrical pressures; pumped between live electrodes like a accordion between player's hands" as if he is finally feeling fully the control others have over him. Society gives him no freedom or room to do different then what please them without being accused and shut down. Coming into consciousness the narrator says, "I don't have enough room," to which a doctor responds "Oh that's a necessary part of the treatment" -- although we never really know what exactly the treatment is for, the doctors talk of  "criminals transformed into amiable fellows," thus we see people trying to literally control who he is.

There are other examples but the most important issue that is raised from the literal aspects of his experience is the narrator's inner questioning of his identity when he cannot remember his name. He panics, thinking, "Who am I? It was no good. I felt like a clown." In all his physical struggle against the machine for room, he comes to a strange deduction, thinking, "Whoever else I was, I was no Samson. I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine. I wanted freedom not destruction...there was one constant flaw, myself." In this moment, the narrator "realizes" that just as he cannot get out of the machine without getting hurt, with all his plans, and blueprints, in his life, his character has prevented himself from achieving what he truly desires. He thinks, "I could no more escape than I could think of my identity. Perhaps, I thought, the two things are involved with each other. When I discover who I am, I'll be free." In this moment, we finally see the concept of the freedom of the mind and self beyond physical freedoms that his grandfather seemed to have and that the narrator was so frustratingly ignorant of when we followed his thought process in the Battle Royale. Upholding the narrator's tentative conclusion is Bigger's "freedom" at the end of Native Son which was derived from Bigger's belief that he finally knew who he was.